


Fur and Fangs

by TheShinySword



Series: Gothic Horror Bandori AU [1]
Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Animal Attacks, Copious use of the term Burgomaster', F/F, Gothic Horror AU, Many characters who are definitely not werewolves, Monster Hunters, Sayo Van Helsing and Awoofterglow AU, This is for me but you can read too, Werewolves, light Violence, light on the horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22347679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShinySword/pseuds/TheShinySword
Summary: When the monster hunter Sayo Hikawa is hired by a nameless town to take care of a werewolf infestation she quickly finds herself in over her head. At least there's one barmaid in town willing to give her a hand.
Relationships: Hazawa Tsugumi/Hikawa Sayo
Series: Gothic Horror Bandori AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722817
Comments: 14
Kudos: 108





	Fur and Fangs

Sayo Hikawa had good reason to be wary of towns too small to have names. The worst monsters always lurked in places maps forgot—witches and wraiths, vampires and werewolves. But where monsters prowled was exactly where a monster hunter belonged.

The young woman was an outlandish stranger in every town she entered. The wide brimmed hat was one thing, the dark suit vest over an unnaturally spotless white shirt was another and large crossbow strapped over her shoulder always drew eyes. But it was the heavy leather duster thrown over her shoulders, its many pockets hiding potions and oils and silver among other trinkets for hunts, that easily marked her as the fourth generation of Hikawa monster hunters. She was certain she would the last.

How her parents had ever found the time to raise a family was beyond her. The world was so desperately full of monsters to be killed Sayo couldn’t imagine finding the time to rest. There was a time she shared the burden of being the last of her line with her younger twin but now… It was difficult to fight monsters when you had become one. Sayo left Hina in the south, knowing any blood she drank may as well have been poured from Sayo’s hands.

But Sayo tried not to dwell on the past—on the vampire she could not kill—when there was hunt before her. The burgomaster of this unnamed Hamlet, a blonde woman with a temper whose name Sayo never caught, had posted the request. A werewolf stalked the forest, killing their deer, frightening their maidens, souring their cow’s milk and making the chickens lay cracked eggs. It hardly mattered which ills were actually the fault of a werewolf. A monster was a monster and monsters were to be killed. So she pulled her hat down and got to work.

Of course, anyone who knew anything wouldn’t talk and anyone who would talk didn’t know anything. As soon as the villagers heard the clack of the hunter’s boots on half cobbled roads they ducked into their homes to glare out the window. Nothing was so universal as the fear of strangers.

At least every town had a tavern willing to take a foreigner’s coin. This one was no different than the others, Sayo noted as she crossed the threshold, the liveliest place in an otherwise dead town. There were the usual hunters noisily comparing their their kills, farmers unwinding, friends reunited and a barmaid scurrying to and fro trying to serve all of them.

Sayo found an empty table and sat, folding her hands in front of her and reviewing her plan. There were three days every moon cycle a werewolf transformed: the last night of the waxing gibbous and the first night of waning gibbous with the night of the full moon in between. Tonight was the final night waxing gibbous in the cycle. She would wait tonight, resting in the burgomaster’s barn. Werewolves were creatures of instinct, not cunning, if she simply waited she would find evidence enough to hunt it down.

“Hey.” Thud. “Don’t you know it’s rude to wear a hat inside?”

Sayo looked from the fist that slammed on her table to the needlessly angry redhead who had thrown it. There was a part of her that longed to yell back but this wasn’t the first time a village tough had tried to intimidate Sayo out of local insensitivity. The hunter pulled off her hat and set it on the table in front of her. “My apologies, weeks on the road make me forget my manners.”

The woman clicked her tongue, puling back. “Yeah, yeah, don’t let it happen again.” The woman’s eyes flicked back to a table where three other women—similar in age probably early twenties—were seated. Was she trying to impress them?

“Tomoe! Please don’t bother my customers!” Before the redhead could return the hurried barmaid rushed to the table, bowing her head over and over to Sayo. Her short brown flared out and around her head as she did.

“T-Tsugumi I was just—”

The barmaid cut her off with a sour pout. “Go back to your table.”

“Y-yes ma’am,” the redhead retreated, though not without shooting a last glare at Sayo around the other woman’s back.

“I’m very sorry about my friend,” the barmaid bowed again, “Tomoe is a good person I promise.”

“Hmm, Tomoe?”

She motioned to the table Tomoe had retreated to, “Tomoe Udagawa.” She pointed to Tomoe’s three companions, women with pink, black and white hair respectively. “Himari Uehara, Ran Mitake and Moca Aoba. We’re childhood friends, they mean well even if they can be rough to strangers.”

“Tsugu. Stop giving away our secrets for free,” the scrawny one with white hair—Moca Aoba—teased.

Sayo committed all their names to memory, “And you are?”

“Oh!” She blushed at her own absentmindedness, “Tsugumi Hazawa! I work here!… which I’m sure you can tell…by…everything…”

“It’s alright Miss Hazawa,” Sayo smiled.

Tsugumi sighed, “I’m sorry, everyone’s just on edge.”

“Why is that?” Sayo asked, already knowing exactly why.

The barmaid hesitated, “Y-you don’t have to worry about it.” She rotated her tray in front of her chest with nervous hands.

“Miss Hazawa, is it possible you don’t know who I am?”

“Should I?”

Sayo tapped the hat on the table, then the coat and crossbow slung over the chair, “I’m the one your burgomaster hired to solve your town’s problem.”

“Oh,” Tsugumi’s eyes grew wide, she looked over Sayo’s head to her friends. “Then I wish you the best Miss…”

“Sayo, please.”

“Miss Sayo. Thank you for your help. If there’s anything I can do to help let me know.”

“Just something to drink and eat, if you would be so kind Miss Hazawa,” Sayo asked.

As Tsugumi left to fetch Sayo a meal, the hunter settled into in her seat, ready to begin the first of many long waits the next few days would bring. There was almost an art to being able to clear her mind enough that time clicked forward at near double speed while Sayo still remained aware of her surroundings, paying particular focus to the table of rowdy young people behind her. Miss Hazawa was the only person in the entire town who both knew something and was willing to tell it but those friends of her were absolutely going to get in the way. So Sayo would wait.

She would wait however long it took. The hunter learned many a useless fact while she waited for the so-called childhood friends to leave. The five ran a farmstead together. The tall angry one also hunted, the small angry one was good especially good with plants. Himari—the one with the pink hair and the dream filled eyes—was desperately in love with some traveling actor (she was also clearly in love with the redhead though neither of them seemed to know it). Sayo learned little about the lazily smiling Moca Aoba, except that she kept one eye trained on Sayo at all times.

They were a deeply suspicious group. Though suspicion did not make a monster.

It was three hours before they finally left and another hour before the tavern was quiet enough for Sayo to wave Tsugumi back to her side.

“Oh! You’re still here,” the barmaid seemed pleasantly surprised.

“I wanted to ask you a few questions, if you have the time Miss Hazawa.”

Tsugumi sat down with happy red cheeks, “You’re so formal.”

“Is that an issue?”

“No, it’s cute.”

Sayo considered the top of her hat with newfound interest. She was not particularly accustomed to being considered cute in any way.

“Miss Sayo?” Tsugumi ducked into Sayo’s lowered line of sight. Her doe-like brown eyes sparkled with something golden. “Your questions?”

“Of course,” Sayo hurriedly forced her composure back into its place. It would not do to lose herself at the first pretty girl willing to talk to her. “Are you from this town Miss Hazawa?”

“Hmm,” Tsugumi’s head titled to the side, her hair following. “Yes.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“…yes,” she answered, bashfully. “How did you know?”

“You’re not a very committed liar.” Sayo didn’t need her many years of experience and training to read Tsugumi’s body language. Some people were just open books. Usually good ones. She’d been that sort of person once. A twinge of fondness echoed through Sayo’s heart.

“I’m sorry, Moca told me to lie. She likes to mess with people,” Tsugumi nibbled her lower lip. “We came here a few years ago. We’re from a town to the north, all five of us. Hanesburg?”

Sayo knew the town, had traveled through it several times. It wasn’t much of a place to live but any town with a name was better than one without. “Why?”

The answer was quick. “We wanted to stay together, but we couldn’t there.”

There was more to the story. But Sayo deemed it irrelevant. There was no point in harassing a willing conversation partner over details. “What do you know about the werewolves?”

Tsugumi smiled, “not much, but I’ll tell you everything I know.”

The two talked for hours. Tsugumi didn’t know much about the werewolves but the longer Sayo talked to the barmaid the more she found other topics interested her more: Tsugumi’s makeshift family, each so lovingly described by the young woman Sayo wished she could meet that version instead, Tsugumi’s passions, she loved baking so much she worked in the tavern just to use their oven, and Tsugumi’s dream, she claimed she was living it as she simply wanted to stay with her family. Sayo hardly shared anything about herself but Tsugumi talked enough for the both of them at the slightest encouragement. And the end of their time together, when customers started to trail back in for dinner, Sayo realized she had learned nothing of any use.

There was little point in learning the details of lives she would leave behind in two days time. For Tsugumi, Sayo would become an often repeated story, growing stranger and stranger with every telling. But it didn’t feel like wasted time, it felt almost pleasant.

At least she could be certain: Whatever was happening in the town, Tsugumi Hazawa knew nothing about it.

* * *

The burgomaster’s barn was comfortable enough as lodgings with a pile of hay for a bed and a donkey for a roommate. Sayo settled into her nest, using her coat as a cloak and her arms as a pillow. Not that she expected to sleep. She went through the motions of closing her eyes and clearing her mind but she knew the moon was high in the sky, only the slightest sliver keeping it from fullness.

So when the wolf started to howl outside the barn, Sayo expected it. When it began scratch and growl at the walls, she wondered but waited. There was a temptation to run out. To try to fight the beast.

The snarling may as well have been delivered directly to Sayo’s ear—booming and wet from hungry jaws. The temptation grew. The crossbow across her chest ached to be pulled. Could she solve it in one night? End the thing now, be gone by morning. It was too strong a draw.

Sayo burst from the barn to a silent night. The woods loomed around her, supernaturally still. The hunter stalked around the perimeter but what had been there was gone as if what was gone had never been there.

That werewolves were not usually the threatening sort did cross her mind. That the attack was oddly focused for mindless monsters was curious. But as Sayo returned to her makeshift bed, she did not let the reasoning keep her from sleep.

* * *

The blonde burgomaster was furious in the morning. She grumbled and yelled about how Sayo was supposed to get rid of the thing, not bring it closer. Sayo still couldn’t be bothered to learn her name. There was no point, she’d be gone the next day anyway. The werewolf would die that night.

As for the day, Sayo would spend it examining the barn and the forest behind it. So she planned until—

“Miss Sayo!”

Little surprised the monster hunter but the sight of Tsugumi running up to Sayo in a spring dress with a basket as if she were going on a picnic was enough to raise her brow. She panted a little as she came to a stop, pink tongue falling outside her lips.

“Miss Hazawa? To what do I owe the pleasure?” Sayo asked.

“I’m glad I caught you. I wanted to help you—with your investigation. I brought lunch!” Tsugumi help up the basket in offering.

Sayo smiled, surely there was no harm in letting her help. “I was feeling a bit peckish. Perhaps after I inspect the barn.” Sayo began to walk towards the modest wooden building shrugging off her coat as she did. Investigating required a finesse leather did not provide. She carefully rolled her sleeves up to the elbow. “Miss Hazawa?” Sayo glanced over her shoulder where Tsugumi was watching without moving, red coloring her cheeks.

Tsugumi shook her head around, smacking her cheeks as she hurried forward to Sayo’s side. “I’m here!”

“I’m glad,” Sayo nodded brusquely and began to look around. “If you could take a look at the near woods for any hairs, claw marks, anything else unusual.”

“Sure!”

Sayo squatted by the edge of the barn, examining the dirt and muck at the base below four scratches so deep the light of the barn shown through them. As she expected, there were hairs trapped there, some black and some white. Curious. “Two colors?” A wolf’s coat was made of many colors. It was more than possible one wolf could have black and white fur.

But still, her instincts stirred.

Tsugumi’s voice cut through Sayo’s thoughts. “Don’t werewolves usually hunt alone?”

Sayo held the white hair up to the light, it was nearly translucent. The barmaid was right. “I’ve never heard of one that didn’t.”

“They’re not really like wolves then?”

“They are in looks, but not in behavior. Werewolves are solitary, unafraid of humans,” Sayo ran her hand over deep gashes in the barn’s wood. “And much stronger.”

“…Do you have to kill them? Aren’t they still people?”

Sayo turned to meet the kind empathy in Tsugumi’s eyes with pity. The way of the world was cruelty but Sayo was thankful Tsugumi had yet to learn that, “The moonlight drives them mad. It’s only a matter of time before this werewolf kills a person, or leaves them for dead and creates another monster.”

“Is that how it works?” Tsugumi asked in the smallest voice Sayo had ever heard.

“No one was ever gently made a werewolf,” Sayo frowned. “All I can do is end them more gently. One silver bolt, between the eyes. Anymore is cruel.”

Tsugumi looked very pale. Her arms hugged her shoulders, “Do you like your work Miss Sayo?”

“No.” The answer came easy, even if the reality was not so simple. “But there is not another to do it.”

The barmaid didn’t respond. Sayo scolded herself for her discourtesy, this was an innocent woman in front of her, not a colleague to trade horrific details with. And by Sayo’s estimate she was just barely a woman, only a few years into her twenties at most. The hunter wasn’t much older but the work had aged her more than the passage of time. “Please accept my apologies.” Sayo bowed her head low, long hair brushing the ground. “The solitude of my profession makes it easy to forget that what I do does not make for pleasant conversation.”

Tsugumi shook her head. “It’s alright.”

Sayo busied herself with her investigation. She carefully placed the plucked hairs into a vial and tucked it into her breast pocket. She crawled around the side, perhaps inelegant but practical, on hands and knees until she found something else of interest.

“Miss Hazawa?” Sayo motioned with her hand. Tsugumi’s light footsteps quickly approached.

“What did you find?”

“No. I just…” Sayo realized the absurdity of what she was about to say but trudged forward anyway. “I found a flower.” She motioned vaguely to a small purple blossom on the ground, “I thought you might like to see it.”

“He he.”

“I must apologize again. Spending time on the road makes it easy to forget the basic pleasantries of conversation and—”

“Miss Sayo. I admit I found you a little scary at first but you’re really a very kind person aren’t you?”

Sayo stopped her work. She had been called many things in her life, most of them not the sort of thing to be repeated in polite company, but never kind. Tsugumi was introducing all sorts of novel firsts into her life. “Thank you,” was all she managed to mutter, continuing the rest of her work in silence.

They broke for lunch when Sayo had finished inspecting the barn so well she surely knew it better than its owner. The carefully packed sandwiches tasted better than anything she’d eaten in a long, long time. Sayo found she was unused to gratefulness the generosity made her feel. She could only promise to quickly resolve the affair, if not for the coin then for Tsugumi’s safety.

* * *

Though she spent the afternoon memorizing as much of the woods as she could walk, by nightfall they were foreign again to Sayo’s eyes—naught but a collection of twisted shadows. No matter, she had draughts for that—one potion to let her see in the dark, another bitter elixir to keep her awake. With careful steps and crossbow in hand she crept through the underbrush, hunting for the wolf’s fresh paw prints.

Transformed werewolves were not clever. They were beasts of habit that circled the same area even after they’d killed everything else in it. New prey in its territory would be irresistible, either Sayo would find the monster or the monster would find her.

A voice in her head not unlike her father’s scolded her hurried hunting. There were better ways to hunt, ways safer than using herself as both bait and trap. If she stayed longer, learned its patterns before she tried to interrupt them. There was a proper way to do this job. But to stay in the town long enough to do it right would mean embedding herself in their way of life for months until the job was finally done. Unnamed villages were too small the get lost in.

It would be easier to just die in wolf’s jaw than grow fond of people she’d inevitably fail.

Cra—ack

Sayo whirled around the darkness, crossbow aimed right were a werewolf’s eyes would lie. The sound told her where the beast stood, but though her eyes could see through the dark they could not pierce the shadows in front of her. Even the moonlight from the full moon hanging above was sucked into the void in front of her. No light could escape save for two red stars suspended and glowing.

And then the void stepped closer and bared its fangs.

The werewolf and the hunter moved at the same time—wolf leaping forward in the midst of its warning growl, hunter shooting and rolling out of the way at the same time.

Thhhtwang!

The bolt whistled through the air, tearing past the werewolf’s massive shoulder to lodge in the trunk of a tree. The wolf ran past disappearing into the dense forest undeterred by the burning cut on its left shoulder.

Sayo cursed, she’d never met a cowardly werewolf. At least the silver from the bolt wounded it. With a quick roll, she was back on her feet and giving chase, fumbling to load another silver bolt onto the crossbow as she jumped over fallen logs and tried to keep the wolf in her sights. At least it was big, almost twice as large as a wolf that couldn’t masquerade as a person, and its fur was so dark a black Sayo could almost track it more easily by the absence of color where it stood.

But it knew the woods better than she could learn in half a day and Sayo could only run so fast on two legs opposed to four. She soon lost sight of it, and found herself forced to focus on the ground and the tracks it made—deep paw prints, the front left mixed with blood.

Deeper and deeper she followed the trail. It broke briefly at a creek where the blood must have washed off its paw—for the tracks after had no blood— but it didn’t stop. Onwards and onwards.

How far had they gone? How far could an injured wolf run? Perhaps the silver in the bolts was impure, even a touch of it was supposed to put a werewolf in agony not give it strength.

Another creek.

The same creek?

Sayo kept running, swearing to stick to cities and beasts with dens from then on. The new paw prints were mixed with the old ones now and when she leaned to catch her breath on a tree her hand grasped her own bolt stuck in the wood.

Something white darted in her periphery. White fur. The realization struck her as she turned her head catching the end of a tail vanishing from sight:

She’d been following the wrong damn wolf for hours.

* * *

When she curled up in her pile of hay just an hour before dawn rose all that awaited her were memories in the form of dreams. Once more she sat at her father’s knee, her sister on the other as he lectured them on a hunter’s most important tool: patience. Hina was the one who needed the lecture—not Sayo. Patience was all Sayo had in the world to truly call her own. The only good point she’d ever had over her sister.

But Hina was gone, and so was Sayo’s patience. She hadn’t gained her sister’s way with people, with a blade, with concocting potions. She was too jealous to save her sister and too weak to stop her. And now there was one last Hikawa monster hunter and all she had inherited was a temper and a need to leave as soon as she arrived anywhere.

_“_ _You’re really very kind aren’t you?”_

Sayo woke not long after she had fallen asleep, a thought on her mind: no matter if there was one werewolf or two, the bolt had wounded one of them. Sayo would know them by the bandage they would surely have to apply to the wound. The hunt was still on.

“Happy Remembrance Day!” Moca cheered, cutting Sayo’s entry into the tavern short. She reached out for Sayo’s upper left arm with a strip of white cloth.

Sayo jerked her arm out of the way, “What are you doing?”

“Tsk, Tsk, Miss Monster Hunter if you’re going to linger around here any longer you’ll have to participate in our ancient customs,” Moca winked.

Sayo reluctantly bequeathed her arm. Moca tied the strip tight, very painfully tight, to Sayo’s arm. The hunter looked from the strip out to the crowd gathered inside. Every single person, at least a dozen and growing, in the tavern was wearing a strip of white cloth around their upper left arm. Exactly where the wolf’s injury would be on a person.

Tomoe smirked from a corner table, raising her bandaged arm, “Happy Remembrance Day.”

“Miss Aoba,” Sayo sneered, “what are we to remember today?”

“The things we’ve forgotten,” Moca nodded solemnly before drifting off to tie more.

Sayo took a seat at the bar, ears twitching to listen in to conversation between two men three glasses deep each.

“Can’t believe it’s already remembrance day, sneaks up on me every day.”

“I don’t remember any remembrance day last year?”

“That’s why we’ve got to remember it this year!” The man hiccuped. “S’what Moca told me.”

Sayo had already suspected it, but now she was certain: Moca Aoba was one of the werewolves. But it wouldn’t do to lop the heads off apparent townspeople in the middle of bars and the identity of the other wolf was still a mystery. Perhaps the quiet one, Ran? The brute Tomoe? Or perhaps—

“Miss Sayo! Can I get you some breakfast?” Tsugumi’s bright smile lifted Sayo’s spirits and aching back.

“I would be very appreciative,” Sayo watched her scurry back to the kitchen. No, Tsugumi wasn’t involved. Sayo was ashamed at her mind for considering it. All she could do now was fill her belly and keep an eye on her only lead.

It was easy enough to watch Moca Aoba, because Moca Aoba was watching her back. Apparently out of ‘celebratory’ ribbons, the scrawny thing retreated back to her friends. Werewolf fur didn’t necessarily correlate with hair color but it was an awfully big coincidence then that her hair was the same mixed white. Besides, for all her smiling the woman couldn’t hide the flicker of primal fury behind her eyes.

“Are you leaving tomorrow?” Tsugumi returned with a plate piled full of sausage and eggs.

“I—” Something kept her from answering with a clear yes. At the edge of her anxious impatience something very small and previously unknown wondered if she might not stay long enough to become more than a passing story. “I plan to.”

The unreadability of Tsugumi’s face surprised Sayo. She’d seemed so open but— “Please stop by before you go.”

“Miss Hazawa?”

“I’ll make you something,” her face was open again, smile bright. “I know—cookies! You can take them with you—people always say they’re good—just… don’t leave without saying goodbye.”

Sayo smiled softly, “alright, I won’t leave without seeing you.”

Tsugumi’s cheeks reddened, “I-I need to get back to work.”

The hunter watched her leave with a bittersweet expression. Maybe in another lifetime someone like Sayo could fall in love with someone so sweet and pure and be loved in return. But she was just a story to be told by someone else in this one—a passthrough player with a bit part. She couldn’t afford the distraction.

But when Sayo looked around, she realized it was too late to avoid: Moca Aoba was gone.

* * *

Moca left less footprints as a human than a wolf, but she was easier to track down. Sayo found her at the bakery buying more fresh bread than a family of ten could eat in a week. She ate three loaves standing outside the front door, one after the other down her gullet. It made a sort of sense, transforming took a lot of energy, running through the woods all night even more, surely she and her partner would need to gain their strength back. Even if the method of ingesting was unusual.

It was just more evidence of her true nature and Sayo wanted as much as she could gather. Killing an innocent person, even one as irritating as Moca Aoba, would be unforgivable.

Sayo followed at a distance as Moca strolled through town. Most people greeted her by name, she greeted them in return with a cheerful vagueness that seemed to hide that Moca knew no one’s name and hardly anything about anyone. The hunter almost respected the commitment to ignorance but it was too familiar to commend.

When Moca ran out of town to wander through she moved on to the forest, lazily following the creek Sayo had become familiar with along it’s path. Sayo used every trick she had to remain hidden. Moca didn’t notice, she was too busy playing her way through the creek and crying when she dropped a loaf of bread in the water.

Perhaps Sayo had jumped to conclusions. This was a friend of Tsugumi’s—no, a member of her family— and Tsugumi couldn’t have two werewolves hiding in her home. Sayo didn’t allow herself to consider anything but the barmaid’s complete and total ignorance as she followed Moca all the way into a large clearing.

The clearing had been turned into makeshift farmstead with fields unevenly spread out from a ramshackle farmhouse. The house had been heavily repaired in the recent past without any care put to the aesthetics of the house. It was as if someone had tried to fight the house and then hurriedly bandaged it up. It’s sagging porch was supported dangerously by two jammed planks, it appeared the roof had collapsed more than once before and at least one window had been broken and simply boarded up instead of repaired. But from the way Moca waltzed in, it was clearly home.

Sayo circled the house from the safety of the perimeter woods. There was only one door and if she waited, pressed against the ground, in the right spot she was certain she’d catch Moca try to sneak out before she transformed—if she transformed.

At least waiting was the sort of patience she had left.

She could wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And watch the sun crest across the sky and begin its journey to the edge of the horizon.

And still she would wait.

And wai—

“Woah. You’re really patient huh, Miss Monster Hunter?”

Sayo flung herself to her feet and back, away from the white haired woman who’d somehow managed to approach her without a sound. She drew her crossbow and aimed it for Moca’s throat.

Moca raised her hands to her chest without any care for the danger she was in. “Pretty scary.”

“Are you really that unconcerned for your own life?”

The probable werewolf shrugged, “You’re not going to shoot me.”

“If you’re a werewolf it’d be easier to do it now.”

“I am a werewolf,” Moca’s lazy smile turned predatory, “and you’re still not going to shoot me.”

Sayo couldn’t keep the shock from her face. “You—”

“Yeah. So aren’t you going to shoot sweet little Moca?” The admitted werewolf tapped her throat.

With a resigned sigh, Sayo lowered the crossbow. “Why are you telling me?”

“Because in less than an hour we’re going to fight to the death,” She said with the same concentrated expression she’d had when she picked out her bread from the bakery.

“Excuse me.”

“Come on, let’s walk.” Moca waved for Sayo to follow and then started into the woods.

“How do you know I won’t shoot you in the back?” Sayo asked, ducking under a low hanging branch.

“Be real weird to walk into town with my cute ‘ol corpse over your shoulder. You’ve got to wait ‘til I’m a wolf so you’re killing a big scary monster~.”

Sayo hated how exactly Moca had read her. She looked out at the horizon, the reds and oranges of the sunset were beginning to dye the forest. They continued on, bathing in the last sunlight, until Moca stepped into a small clearing where Ran Mitake was waiting with a white bandaged stained red on her upper arm.

“Damn it!” Sayo grabbed for her crossbow but before she could pull it off of her back it was wrenched out of her hands by the silently stalking form of Tomoe Udagawa. Sayo couldn’t dodge before Tomoe struck her in the stomach with her own heavy crossbow.

Sayo fell to her knees, doubled over.

“Sorry Miss Monster Hunter, I didn’t say it’d be a fair fight to the death.”

Sayo looked up, only able to watch as there in the clearing as the waxing moon’s light replaced the afterglow of the sunset the three women began to transform.

Instinct averted Sayo’s eyes. No one ever gently turned into a werewolf. The cracking and snapping of bones breaking and realigning would haunt her—if she survived to sleep again.

It was over by the time she climbed to her feet. There was only one human in that clearing and she was surrounded by three bloodthirsty monsters.

There was the black wolf she’d chased—still large and silent but also suffering from the silver-burned injury as red and angry as its eyes.

Then the white wolf Sayo had only glimpsed the night before after it led her around in circles. It was as malnourished as the girl it pretended to be, ribs poking out from the snow mountains of its fur. But a hungry beast was just that more vicious and there was a terrifying sort of mania dancing in its eyes.

And last a third wolf, the largest yet with ruddy fur and eyes like a violent storm on the open ocean. If it stood by Sayo’s side its shoulders would reach her chest easily, on its hind legs it would dwarf her. It’s lips curled back. Its uncovered fangs were each the size of Sayo’s fist.

The wolves growled in unison. The low rumble of their warning shook the trees around them. Sayo had hoped she was dead to fear but it began to stab through her ribs at her heart. They were going to attack. Her only useful weapon was out of reach.

The three wolves surrounded the hunter, pacing in a slow, deliberate circle. Sayo’s eyes flicked from the wolves to the depths of the forest but even there glowed another set of emerald eyes. There was no retreat. What a fool she’d been.

Hikawas were either killed by monsters or became them. And she would not be made a monster.

Sayo sent a silent apology to Miss Hazawa. She’d never try those cookies. It wasn’t her greatest regret, but it was the most pleasant one to linger on—even then a face so much like her own flashed through her mind. Sayo had so much to regret.

The hunter drew a short blade from her long coat. The wolves understood.

They charged as one. Sayo met the white wolf with a blade to the shoulder, the black one with an elbow to its throat but the red wolf was too big and angry to let pain trick it away. She fought the red wolf’s jaw with steel, forcing it to clamp around the short, sharp blade. It snapped down, blood pouring around Sayo’s sword as the wolf forced itself closer and closer, its iron breath on her cheek. Her hat tumbled into the darkness.

The black wolf lunged but Sayo caught it with her foot to its gut, kicking it hard and away. The white wolf took over for the black wolf, slamming Sayo with its full body weight and crashing her to the ground. The red wolf turned its grapple into a pin.

It tore into Sayo’s arm with violent claws digging through leather to flesh. Sayo could barely keep the teeth held back from her throat. Sayo tried to shove the beast off but if this was a test of strength between monster and woman, the monster would win.

The sounds of snarls and snapping jaws surrounded her. Somewhere in that violent cacophony of noise there was a growl so full of fury it forced the terror directly to Sayo’s chest.

And suddenly, just as teeth touched skin, the red wolf was ripped away from the hunter.

Sayo used her fortune to grab her breath as fast as she could before the weight of the one wolf was replaced by another’s.

The brown wolf was fury incarnate, baring fangs and claws, snarling as close as a wolf could get to a scream. But the anger was not aimed at Sayo. Those fangs were not for her but its companions. Its front legs and chest covered Sayo’s own, as if protecting her body from the others. Lips still curled back, the wolf looked at Sayo with its deep, brown eyes.

Oh.

 _Her_ brown eyes.

Sayo’s heart thundered. Her instincts begged her to flee, but the hunter lay still and let her prey protect her instead.

The other wolves fell instantly, cowering with ears folded and tails tucked. The three exchanged a hesitant glance before letting loose pitiful whines and running into the night. As suddenly as the women had become monsters, the monsters became scolded puppies.

Even when the others were out of sight, the brown wolf didn’t move. Slowly, though, her jaw eased and she lowered her head to Sayo’s chest, still guarding Sayo’s neck. The hunter’s nose filled with the earthy scent of the forest mixed with the unmistakable scent of baked sweets.

They lay there silently. Wolf and Woman. Predator and prey. Monster hunter and barmaid. Until Sayo broke the stillness with a whispered: “Thank you.”

The wolf’s eyes rolled to Sayo, as bashfully as a beast could manage. The hunter could feel the wolf’s pounding heartbeat against her own—deeper and slower. And with a surprising lack of hesitation Sayo reached her arm around the wolf’s back and buried her hand in the thick soft fur around the wolf’s neck.

Her fur was remarkably thick, deep enough that Sayo’s hand sunk out of view. The moonlight hit her just so the cream colored fur on her chin and chest glowed. Now that she could see one up close—one that was not trying to kill her—there was something oddly adorable about the massive canine. Without thinking Sayo moved her hand up to the wolf’s small, alert ears and scratched along the base.

It occurred to Sayo that was probably some big breech of werewolf etiquette—a ridiculous concept prior to an hour ago—to scratch a werewolf as she were a house pet but the wolf stayed put and, after a moment, leaned into Sayo’s hand.

“Are you going to keep me here all night?”

The wolf huffed, it’s breath warm against Sayo’s cheek.

“Alright,” Sayo let her arm fall around the wolf, as if she were a favorite teddy bear and not the thing she had been sent to kill. “As you wish.”

At least she would be alive to figure it out in the morning.

* * *

Sayo woke with the sun in her eyes and the absolute certainty in her chest that she should have died the night before.

The heavy pressure on her chest she’d fallen asleep with had vanished and in it’s place was the more comfortable weight of the still sleeping and very naked young woman in Sayo’s arms. Despite her years of trained hunter stoicism, Sayo still felt fire on her cheeks at the soft curves pressed against her body. It was impossible not to look, with how Tsugumi was still covering most of Sayo, still protecting her vitals as a human.

Sayo’s eyes lingered over the scar on her shoulder marring otherwise unblemished skin, a spot where something—someone—had once very carefully and forcefully bitten down. Tsugumi was the first werewolf Sayo had ever seen who wasn’t covered in scars, she thought curiously before forcing her eyes shut.

It was not polite to ogle one’s savior.

With great care Sayo pulled the smaller, still sleeping, woman off of her. She then draped her leather duster over the young woman’s prone form to grant her some modesty before lifting Tsugumi into her arms, one arm hooked under her knees, the other holding her body tight to Sayo’s chest to keep her head from lolling about.

Slowly Sayo made her way back through the forest. For the first time it seemed quite a beautiful place. After a bit of travel Tsugumi stirred in her arms. Sayo felt her body grow tense but almost as quickly begin to relax.

Sayo wasn’t sure where to begin. Would she thank Tsugumi for saving her life? Scold her for trying to hold back the truth or just ask, “Miss Hazawa, are all your friends werewolves?”

Tsugumi sighed into Sayo’s torn vest, “Yes. Himari was keeping watch.”

The confirmation brought Sayo only mortal embarrassment. Her ancestors were surely mocking her for losing all of her senses because she didn’t want to believe one beautiful woman was a werewolf. “I’m a terrible monster hunter.”

Giggling. “You kind of are.” The giggling stopped, “S-sorry. To be fair, I was… trying to sabotage you.”

That explained quite a bit. All the conversations were distractions. “I suppose the sandwiches were poisoned?”

“What? No! I could never do that.”

“If you were trying to sabotage me you probably should have.”

“I—I thought you’d be hungry…”

What a curious werewolf. “I’m sorry, I completely mischaraterized and underestimated you in my mind.”

Tsugumi flinched, “Are you disappointed?”

“On the contrary,” Sayo looked down with a private smile as she crunched through the underbrush, “I only find you more attractive now.”

Tsugumi curled her head and shoulders into Sayo’s chest, “o-oh.”

They continued in pleasantly embarrassed quiet, Tsugumi softly humming with the beat of Sayo’s heart. As they crested over the small hill before the farmstead Sayo asked one last question, “Why did you save me?”

“I didn’t want my friends to kill you. I won’t let them become murderers,” Tsugumi spoke with the same strength Sayo had felt protecting her the night before.

“That’s why you don’t lose yourselves when you transform,” Sayo theorized, “you’re too strong willed to let them go.”

Before Tsugumi could modestly refute they emerged from the woods in sight of the house. Moca lounged along the porch rail like a stray cat with a familiar felt hat resting over her eyes. Beside her Himari sat in a rocking chair, exasperatedly trying to sew the remnants of a pair of pants back together.

Sayo had little time to wonder after them, however, before a familiar redhead, fresh but cleaned cut glistening across her lips, barreled off the porch. She wasn’t half as intimidating or fast as a human but Sayo still hoped to avoid another fight.

“What are you doing with our Tsugu?!”

Carefully, Sayo helped Tsugumi to her feet, Sayo’s coat pulled tight around her. Then she readied herself for the fist that was surely about to fly for her, legs back, arms raised to protect—

“Tomoe. Stop.”

Tomoe skidded to a stop so forcefully her heels hoed a proper trench across the field. She stilled mere feet from Sayo’s raised fists and inches from Tsugumi’s stern pout. “T-Tsugu I was just—”

“No more fighting.” Tsugumi’s voice softened, “please.”

Tomoe’s shoulders slumped and she somehow looked up at someone several inches shorter than she was. It was the second time Sayo had seen such a chastened expression, thought the first time she’d seen it on a human.

“Miss Sayo, please come in,” Tsugumi motioned towards her house, holding the coat closed. “I’ll put on some tea.”

Tsugumi led her up the porch and into the house. Sayo swiped back her hat just before entering the house. She allowed her self a satisfied smirk at the loud, crashing thud she left behind her.

Inside Sayo was settled at the kitchen table. Tsugumi disappeared with a quick apology to make herself decent again. As Sayo waited Ran peeked out at her from behind a doorframe like an anxious cat, over and over again until she finally worked up the courage to settle into the seat directly across the table. She sat with her arms crossed and her chin defiantly raised. A purple bruise blossomed across her throat but if anything she took the injury as a point of pride.

One by one the rest of the pack trickled in and squeezed around Ran, leaving Sayo’s half of the table completely empty. Only Ran still glared, Tomoe still looked embarrassed at being chastened, Himari merely looked exhausted and Moca still wore that same grin. At least Moca’s eyes weren’t threatening to kill Sayo anymore.

Sayo was deeply grateful when Tsugumi reappeared. She set the kettle on the stove and spun around clapping her hands. “Okay, let’s tell Miss Sayo everything now.”

“E-everything?” Ran stuttered, Sayo was surprised by how young the sullen woman sounded.

“How do we know she won’t just run off to grab a bunch of monster hunter pals?” Tomoe grumbled, kicking her feet onto the table.

“Miss Hazawa saved my life. I would never betray that mercy.”

“I trust her,” Tsugumi set out six mugs across the table, “If she says she won’t betray us. I believe it.”Their eyes met across the table. Tsugumi looked away smiling before shooting another one of her powerful shaming looks at the others, “Your life shouldn’t have been in danger though.”

“H-hey,” Tomoe stammered, “We tried to scare her off. The howling and scratching thing normally works but then she shot Ran and uh, emotion got the better of some of us.”

Moca shrugged, “The beautiful human Moca can’t be held responsible for the actions of the luxuriously fluffy Moca.”

“Moca you wanted to kill Sayo in her sleep!” Himari yelled. “As a person!”

“The beautiful human Moca is very practical.”

“I told you three to lay low,” Tsugumi fumed at the dangerous trio. An appropriate level of shame fell over them.

The kettle whistled. Skillfully, Tsugumi poured hot water into each mug and passed them along. Any remaining tension between them evaporated with the rising steam. Tsugumi sat beside Sayo and began to speak, “Ran was attacked by a werewolf when we were kids. About thirteen?”

“It was really scary,” Himari interrupted, “We thought she was gonna DIE.”

“Instead she turned into a dog,” Tomoe jumped in, “Really freakin’ weird to see your best friend turn into a dog.”

Sayo blew softly over her tea. “Did Miss Mitake try to attack any of you?”

“I would never do that!” The usually silent Ran snarled, almost as fiercely as the wolf.

Sayo clicked her tongue, “I’ve never heard of a werewolf with self control.”

“You don’t exactly know much about werewolves. Least not according to Tsugu,” Tomoe shrugged.

“I’m sorry, Miss Sayo.” Tsugumi’s hands fisted in her skirt, “I also told them everything we talked about.”

Sayo waved away Tsugumi’s guilt with a flick of the wrist, “If I had a family to protect I would have done the same.”  
Tomoe and Ran rolled their eyes. “Alright, alright enough mooning,” Tomoe grumbled. “Where were we?”  
Moca raised a hand. “The part where the innocent, pure hearted and very beautiful miss Moca pets Ran all night long through her first transformation.”

“T-that’s not what happened.”

“That is pretty much what happened,” Himari teased.

“Once we realized Ran was a werewolf… we knew we couldn’t let her be one alone so…” Tsugumi trailed off, blushing at a memory.

Himari picked up, “So Tsugu said: Let’s be a pack!”

“If Miss Mitake was the first werewolf of your group,” Sayo’s eyes narrowed, “Does that make her the alpha?”

Tomoe scoffed, “Alright Miss Amateur Biologist, it’s a lot more egalitarian than that.”

“But if she bit all of you, surely there’s some sort of biological hierarchy.”

“I only bit Tsugumi,” Ran admitted reluctantly.

“That’s okay Ran,” Tsugumi comforted Ran as she relieved the memory, “it was really hard for you.”

“So then… Tsugumi…” The pieces slotted together.

“Bit the rest of us,” Tomoe slung her arms around Moca and Himari and pulled them close. “But I’d listen to her no matter what! We just also have a light biological compulsion to.”

The most powerful person in the house shrugged and smiled bashfully, “That’s basically it.” Tsugumi added, “We move every couple of years when people get suspicious. When Moca gets seen or Tomoe accidentally goes after livestock.”

“Like right now,” Ran huffed through pouting lips, “the whole town will figure it out soon.”

“S-so we’ll just move again! Traveling’s fun!” Himari said, trying to rally their spirits.

Ran shrugged, “it’s the same as always no matter where we are if we’re together.”

The pack laughed at some inside joke. They looked so happy just to be together, even in face of a setback like this. Sayo felt a little jealous, the five of them could go anywhere in the world and still be home.

“Hey Sayo,” Tomoe leaned across the table, her eyes sparking with an idea, “you ever been south of here?”

“I’m from south of here.” How south, Sayo left out.

She slammed the table happily, “Perfect. You can guide us!”

Tsugumi choked on her tea. “You tried to kill her last night.”

Moca weighed the idea in her head, “The great and merciful Moca has decided to forgive.”

“It’s not a bad idea. Himari is terrible with directions,” Ran added.

Himari’s head whipped between her friends, “Don’t drag me into this!”

“Miss Sayo, please don’t think you owe me for last night,” Tsugumi buzzed nervously, “I want you to do what you want to do.”

Sayo thought over what a truly bad idea it was. She thought about how half the people in the room had been at her throat not twelve hours ago. She thought about how many months it had been since she traveled with another person. She thought about how purposefully she had avoided going south for all that time.

And then the lonely hunter forgot about all those things and answered:

“I suppose I’ve always been fond of dogs.”

**Author's Note:**

> All werewolf Afterglow stories should be called Awoofterglow. I will not be taking questions. 
> 
> This story is based on a tweet from Pyton about a SayoTsugu werewolf Au where Tsugumi/Afterglow are werewolves and Sayo's from a line of monster hunters and I got halfway through this story when I realized it was probably supposed to be like a Teen Wolf thing but I've always been more of a Ravenloft/Van Helsing sort of person myself so yolo. 
> 
> I really just wanted to take a pause to practice the sorts of writing I really don't have much of an opportunity to write (action scenes). If I ever have the time (HA) I would love to write a sequel that's like "Return to Castle Shirasagi" written in a style closer to a classic gothic novel because I am very dramatic and the style suits me.


End file.
